Way of the World

When a friend is in trouble, it's as well to rally round. This was the sentiment that brought every single member of FOCS (Friends of Clare Short) to a fund-raising dinner on her behalf last night.

It was indeed heart-warming to see all four members of our organisation around that table. We were there to express our solidarity with a woman who has spent many years wrestling with her conscience and yet somehow manages, again and again, to come out on top.

Lovely, lovely Clare was there to welcome us, bless her. "It's champagne all round!" she exclaimed, as she gave each of us a super Brummie kiss and an empty glass. "At least, that is what I have been assured. But we are what we are, we can only do our best, and if the champagne does not arrive, as I had hoped, then we must decide how we can best take things forward from here.

"But what I can definitely say is that I absolutely won't be drinking champagne if there's none for anyone else. There's no question about it." Fair enough. I think I speak for all members of FOCS when I say how much we admired Clare's frank and outspoken line on the whole issue. We held on to our empty glasses with renewed hope and vigour. But as the talk turned to her courage and foresight, I couldn't help but notice that Clare's own glass was full of champagne. For us, this was excellent news. We were delighted that Clare herself had stuck her neck out and managed to find her own champagne.

It was typical of that brave woman that she should now be draining it with boldness, regardless of political consequences.

"Originally," she explained, "I had made up my mind that I certainly wasn't going to have a glass of champagne if no one else was having one. That's not my way, never has been, never will be. But then I took a long, hard look at my empty glass, and I thought this would be the most cowardly course of action.

"Of course, I was troubled, greatly troubled, and it's not nice being troubled, not nice at all. But in the end you've got to do what you think you should do, not what you think you shouldn't, even if what you think you should do is not what you think you shouldn't do. That has always been my clear position.

"And so, after an intense period of reflection, I have decided that, for the sake of everyone without champagne, it would be selfish not to drink my own glass of champagne. Without it, there would be no way forward to resolving the very grave lack of champagne problem ahead of us."

The room echoed to our applause. As Clare finished her speech, there were tears in my eyes. It was time to move through to dinner. "The rest of you should eat as much as you like," she said, as we took our places around the table, "But that's not my way. Never has been, never will be. I can tell you now, it is my firm intention, if and when dinner is served, to eat nothing. I owe it not only to myself, but also to all those who are starving out there in the wider world beyond this room. There's no way I can let them down. Absolutely. No question about it." Stirring stuff. We were all of us delighted that this lovely, feisty lady had lost none of her fighting spirit.

By now, we were a little hungry: there was much excitement when the waiter arrived with our plates. He set before each of us a plate of four freshly-picked garden peas. "Let's make no bones about it. That's definitely one of my favourite meals. And frankly it bears out what I've always maintained - that no one, and I mean no one, needs more than four garden peas for a main course. Not with the world in the state it's in. I mean honestly!" declared Clare, forcefully. We all murmured our approval for her remarkable idealism.

I think it was somewhere between my third and fourth pea that I began to notice that Clare herself was tucking into a fillet steak and chips with a selection of vegetables, all washed down with a glass of claret. She must have spotted my glance, as she began to launch into an impassioned defence of her meal.

"This might look like steak and chips," she said. "And it might look like I am eating this steak and chips. And many people will, I know, feel I have let them down by eating this steak and chips. But I am doing something I believe to be right in the circumstances. Let me make this quite clear. I do not want to eat steak and chips. Believe me, I am only eating steak and chips because I am a vegetarian. Not to eat it would be taking the easy way out. And that's not the sort of person I am.

"It is a decision I'll have to live with, and that will take courage. But I've had the courage to take the wrong decision in the past, and there's no way I'm going to be cowardly and take a decision just because it's right.

"The world has changed since I announced that I was going to eat nothing. Two minutes ago, there wasn't steak and chips in front of me. But now that there is, I believe I have a duty to finish it off. Frankly, the real test I now face is whether I still have room for pudding. First, let me make it quite clear that I will not be eating pudding. And second, let me say this: pass the custard."